DOUBLE WIDE

by Jim Parnell

2000 Years!!!

...and
All I Got wasThis
Stupid T-Shirt

So you think you're special, just by being around when the
odometer rolled over to 2000, as if that mildly interesting number granted
you some sort of historical significance without you doing much more than
lift a line on an EKG. That truly arbitrary number, which, by its
shape alone seems to confer a mystical hoo-haw to the normal yattering
of misinformation, blatant propaganda, and just plain ignorant media fog
that surrounds the whole event -- ain't nothing but a number, and who's
afraid of numbers? Even bi-i-g, ro-o-ound ones? You?

"Well," say the talking heads, vacuous eyes staring out of the tube
in earnest concern, "the World Might End because of the (reverb here) Y2K
bug-bug-ug-ug!" I laugh every time I hear that, for a couple of reasons.
First thing that crosses my mind is that not a single program written --
no word processor, nor any CAD program or browser, no tax program (ulp!),
no missile defense system, no real-time control for fly-by-wire airliners
(yikes!), or even medical monitoring and life support equipment (arggh!)
is without bugs.

Bubba's Law of Computer Inadequacy: "No program ever written is
bug free"

The other thing that cracks me up about Y2K is that the mouthpieces
(see Heads, talking) know absolutely nothing about it. Nor do most
of you, but at least you're not standing there on national TV with your
faces hanging out pretending that you do. Even the supposed "science"
reporters tell nothing of any value since their producers generally axe
any informative material, deeming it too technical for the MVP's (moronic
viewing public) to understand. Yea verily, so do the uninformed stay
that way.

The truth of the matter is that the Y2K bug is, for most of the areas
where it could be a factor, a rather obscure and convoluted kind of failure
mode for obsolete programs that are likely to go tumbling down in little
pieces at the slightest touch anyway. Picture, if you will, hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of lines of gobbledy-gook code hacked to pieces
by legions of scraggly-ass first and second-year co-ops during the sixties
and seventies, taking lunch breaks of speed and phenobarbital, washed down
by Jack Daniels and Scheaffer beer (at just eight bucks a case, what a
deal!). Such code has been patched so many times, there's nothing
left of the original. It's all spit and baling wire, with ratty old
duct tape wrapped like a big yellow ribbon around the old oak tree!

You may not have noticed it, but that code has been crapping out for
years. Extended power outages, airport delays, telephone system failures
-- they're all symptoms of aging code and hardware. When it gets
bad enough, the owners of the mess excise entire masses of it, like gangrenous
limbs amputated to save the patient's life. And guess what? It
works better than before! Of course that's not saying much,
but what's one more little glitch, I ask you.

I'll put it on the line, here. All this gabble about computer-related
disaster at the millenium is just uninformed hype. If it ain't, and
the world ends by silicon, rather than fire and ice, I'll send each of
you a dollar. By electronic wire transfer, of course.

Then you've got the Revelationists, the Nostradamites, the Survivalists,
and any of a million other wacko cults salivating like pervs at the prospect
of the upcoming debacle. Like they've got nothing better to do than
croak. Well, maybe they don't, but that doesn't mean the rest of
us should have to listen to their fatalistic faerie tales. God coming
down and smiting the evil, then rewarding the good (read: Christians),
followed by a thousand years of the Kingdom of Christ in which everybody
gets to live in peace and harmony.

Well, maybe not everybody -- probably not them nasty A-rabs, or them
dirty Hindoos. It's an exclusive club, don't you know. But
it's easy to join. All you've got to do is sign here on the dotted
line, folks! Accept Christ and the local Rotary Club will hand you
the Keys to Heaven! No need to worry about global warming!
Forget about acid rain and overpopulation -- hell, Armageddon's gonna take
care of overpopulation! Don't sweat it, dude! Game over!

I think they're just deadbeats ducking out on the check.

No matter what happens, it should be a hell of a party. I can
only hope that you've got something memorable planned, but I have a feeling
you'll be like me, sitting at home drinking cheap beer and eating pork
rinds, 30 meters down in a kevlar-reinforced bomb shelter, watching the
maniacs in Times Square shred each other just before the Russians nuke
the Big Apple because their fire control systems won't work after 23:59:59,
December 31st, 1999.

Geez, didn't anybody tell them they're allowed to spring forward?

UP THE MILLENNIUM!

For more on Up The Millenium, the entire boxed set is available on DVD
and HTML at your local Scientology bookstore. See also The
Feat Death of the Universe at this fine retail outlet!

Squeal Like a Pig! -- Thought this
might be one of the last comic opportunities I'll have with Clinton leaving
office next year... Hey wait a minute, his term doesn't end until January,
2001! So what are all those wonks doing running already...

"Woh no, here comes that screamin'
sow-ind again!"

-Frank Zappa

With a flourish of Senate investigations, special prosecutors, and late-arriving
spoilers and party-crashers, The Bill began his 2nd term running like a
gringo on Mexican holiday. In the last year of that term he's still
running, trying to shake the kinks out of his karma like an overweight
courtesan shaking the wrinkles from her corset. Dodging accusations
and questions of ethics with a gusto reminiscent of Boss Tweed, we find
him at his first news conference of the millennium...

AP: Mr. President, is it true you've had sex with twenty
different women since coming into office?

Clinton: Heh-heh, I guess she does now! Oh well, she
needs some competition anyways; gettin' a little complacent lately.
That don't mean she wouldn't make a fine Senator, though. The things
she can do things with a Whip ...

UPI: Er, uh, even though it's now public record, what were
you really trying to say on the videotape you made for the Whitewater committee?

Clinton: Well, actually, I didn't say anything.
I thought it would be more interestin' if I was to mime my answers,
like one of them Frenchie dudes with the whiteface and black clothes.

(at this point the President of the most powerful nation
on earth demonstrates his technique, doing the "help I'm trapped in a box"
and the "walking against the wind" bits. The camera pans across the
reporters, who sit staring, mouths agape, drool running down their chins)

Clinton: (chuckles) Foxed you! Actually I was
telling the committee they could go fuck theyselfs, since it was too damn
late for them to stop me from gittin' re-elected.

UPI: But sir, how could you do that? Wasn't the thought
of impeachment going through your mind?

Clinton: Hell no, I was completely confident they wouldn't
do a damn thing. I've got this technique, you see: whenever I'm facing
a crisis, I give myself an edge, like a gunfighter who makes sure the sun's
to his back, you know? The edge I had on that videotape was that
I was nekkid as a jaybird under that desk!

All: What? Naked?!!

Clinton: Yep, the old lavalier was just a-wavin' in the
breeze! Nuthin' quite so liberatin'. Uh-oh, did I use
the 'L' word? Oh well, what the fuck...

(right then, Senator Dick Armey -- jeez what a name no wonder
he's so repressed -- stands up with a grin and waves brand-new impeachment
papers. As he clears his throat to speak, Clinton whips out a .45
and blasts Armey's head off, then redundantly empties a clipful of dum-dums
where the head used to be. Sparks flying, Armey's body reels, stabilizes,
then begins to speak in an electronically enhanced Texas twang)

Clinton: Goddammit! I knew that bastard was a friggin'
android but I never could prove it before now! Hey boys! (waves
to the Secret Service guys) I'm tired of this talking.
Shoot me that sack of chips over yonder!

(the Secret Service guys yank their automatic weapons and
begin hosing the Right Honorable Senator, who begins a puppet dance as
the rounds toss him around. Finally, they hit the power supply which
explodes and wipes out the entire White House press corps.

Clinton climbs out from behind his podium, wiping off the blood and
Gore (Al ? AL!)

Clinton: Well hell, looks like Texas needs a new senator.
Never did like New York much anyhow. Oh Hilary!

Y2K Stote of the Disunion -- The
man just can't keep his pants on... OK, I've got a million of these.
So sue me.

It was a far cry from the previous addresses, but there was
still a spark of life in the old horn-dog yet. As he mounted the
podium, the hallowed halls of Congress echoed with a chorus of cheers and
catcalls, hurrahs and the thud of dead cats.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The 2000 State of the Union Address

My fellow Americans, Democrat and - HAWK-TOOIE!- Republican, young and
old, liberal and - SNAARF! - conservative, we stand at the threshold of
a brave new millennium. It is a time in which we reach out our hand
to the next generation, making sure we use condoms even for non-sexual
relations like one-sided oral stimulation, and it is a time to give up
cigar smoking forever. It is also a time to end the politics of slash
and burn, unless you're damn well going to inhale.

In brief, my fellow Americans, or in boxers, we must follow our instincts
for survival and perpetuation of the species. We must call a spade
a spade, a lie a lie, and a blue dress a Petri dish. Head first into
the 21st Century, and your other head will surely regret it later.

Not to pick a well-honed bone, an activity which is well known to Democrat
and -WHOCK-TU!- Republican alike, we must now remove the cloud of suspicion
and smoke from burning, shredded documents. We must smite the legions
of paid prevaricators! We must destroy those that seek to air the
dirty laundry behind the politics and shatter the illusion of high moral
ideals by ending our complacent, blind, and comfortable tradition of denial.
In short, or in Speedos, we

MUST -- KILL -- KEN -- STARR !!!

(which I have authorized the Secret Service to do as soon as he can
be located). Aside from this teensy little glitch, the State of the
Union is righteous, dudes and dudettes. The stock market goes up
and up and up, as the Republican voter rolls go down and down and down.

There is Justice in the Land.

As you know, the measure of a man is his actions, which speak louder
than words, or even louder than cries of, "Faster! Faster!"
Since this is the last time I will address this body in person, I have
decided to address this body WITH my person. All you Democrats close
your eyes, now. All -HACK- Republicans, you will now be mooned by
the Presidential buttocks.

The silent black helicopter hovered over the NJ industrial
park. It was dusk, but the parking lot was still full of cars as
the employees labored furiously on in a mania of desperate futility.
Ohmm sneezed gobbets of blue slime.

"Geez, boss, that never happened before..." Flipper reared back in disgust.

"Id's jusd a code." Just back from a rendezvous with the local
representative from GRABS (GRay Aliens Benefit Society), Ohmm sniffed.
"Dose damn Grays. Always grabbing sick humans from trailer parks
and poking them in the butt. Why don't they ever nab Harvard grads
with up-to-date medical insurance?"

Ohmm stared at Flipper. "She said to lay off. Those worm-ridden
apes down there turn out to be their great-great-to-the-43217th grandmas
and grandpas. She said that if we take them out, they'll take us
out."

Flipper gasped, "War? They'd go to war over those baboons?"

Darkly contemplating the troublesome Grays, Ohmm nodded silently, then
smiled. If they wiped out humans in this time-space continuum, the
Grays would never have a chance to evolve...

Better cover his cloaca on this one. He cackled and hacked up
a furball, then he set up an ansible-conference to Homeworld to bounce
it up the food-chain to upper management.

On the surface of Mars, from their huge underground headquarters
beneath the Giant Face, the Gray delegation trained their Alludium Q-34
Space Modulator on the far side of the moon. The Slugs' swarming
base filled the crosshairs as the balonium capacitors charged...

Jim Parnell generates bugs for a living -- the ones that infest your
computer. In a demonstration of obvious mental deficiency,
he plans to be on full life-support in a commercial airliner booking flights
and making e-trades at 23:59:59, December 31, 1999.